Chapter 102 – The Ultimate Raid
by Salted FishFang Zheng stood frozen in place, dumbstruck, watching as the little bird who had just launched a surprise attack casually shoved his hands into his pockets and sauntered downstairs. Only when the other’s figure disappeared around the stairwell corner did he snap out of his shock. But in the next second, he was plunged into immense sorrow…
Damn it, my first kiss!!
Couldn’t that bastard have picked a sunny, picturesque spot?!
In TV dramas, after girls get kissed, they can shyly lean against lush, shady trees or pretend to run away shouting, “I’m ignoring you!” as their skirts flutter through fields of rapeseed flowers. At the very least, they should turn their faces away, gripping a railing while the breeze on the shore tousles their hair! Who the hell chooses a dimly lit, dust-filled, cramped stairwell with old newspapers and magazines in front and a whetstone and water vat behind?! This is straight-up fraud, isn’t it?! It’ll leave an indelible scar on my crystal-clear first love, won’t it?!
“Milk Mom, what the hell are you dawdling for up there—”
Fifth Brother’s booming voice pierced through the floors straight into his ears.
The profound atmosphere Fang Zheng had painstakingly built was instantly shattered by this lion’s roar. The Commander was furious: “What’s the rush?! Can’t a guy reflect on life in peace—”
Fifth Brother shut up, deeply ashamed of his vulgar interruption of the Commander’s lofty and sophisticated contemplation.
Diamond sighed with emotion, “This aura… only Zombie can handle it…” After speaking, he turned to Zombie, hoping for agreement or shared sentiment, only to find the guy standing with his back to the crowd, frozen in a pose eerily similar to his in-game idle stance.
Diamond walked over and clapped Birdy on the shoulder: “Hey, what’s on your mind? Don’t tell me you’re reflecting on life too.”
Birdy was startled, though his reaction only showed in a slight eyebrow raise: “Uh, it’s a bit cold.”
“Not really…” Diamond muttered, then took another look at Birdy and suddenly understood. “Oh damn, you really are cold. You just came down and your face is already red.”
“Heh.”
“……”
Deputy Commander, you can be cold and happy, but you can express happiness with just a smile. There’s no need to vocalize the laughter so faithfully—it makes me feel like you’re insulting me. TAT
While internally griping, Xiong Yun was also slightly surprised by the difference in Meng Chudong’s demeanor when he smiled versus when he didn’t. To be precise, apart from a polite curl of his lips when they first met, the guy had been expressionless the entire time. It wasn’t an intentionally cold or aloof act meant to annoy—just a natural blankness that didn’t make interactions uncomfortable but certainly didn’t radiate warmth either. Against this backdrop of neutrality, his appearance hadn’t stood out much. Men, unlike women, don’t size each other up for attractiveness when they first meet—unless you’ve got two noses or three mouths, you’re unlikely to draw much attention. Xiong Yun himself was often told by friends how handsome he was, and he thought he looked decent, but objectively speaking, he was just average—not lost in a crowd, but not exactly eye-catching either. But Birdy was different. If this guy’s neutral expression was like Mario at the start of Super Mario Bros.—completely unremarkable—then his smile was like Mario after eating a mushroom and a Starman—suddenly towering, glowing, and firing love bullets at you. If you were fully buffed with defense, you’d be fine, but if caught off guard like Xiong Yun just was, you’d get hit straight on, and suddenly, everything would seem brighter. You’d involuntarily think, Damn, this guy’s got charisma. Of course, immediately after that thought, the standard male reaction would kick in: Anyone hotter than me can go die.
“Coming, coming! Quit rushing me! If I don’t lock the door properly and all your crap gets stolen, don’t come crying to me.” The grumbling Commander finally came down.
Only when the stocky Milk Mom barged into view did Diamond belatedly realize something. He glanced at Birdy, then back at Milk Mom, concluding that the standards for male aesthetics in their circle truly followed no discernible logic. Yep, this had to be true love.
But—when did that yellow jacket get swapped for a black coat?! Explanation, please!
The nearest internet café was just a street away from Fang Zheng’s place. Under the gradually darkening sky, half the café’s neon sign had burned out, leaving only the latter half, “Post Station1Historically, relay stations for messengers or travelers,” illuminated. The group stood there analyzing it for a while, even resorting to turning on their smartphone flashlights, before finally deciphering the unlit first two characters as “Internet.” The revelation was profoundly underwhelming.
At seven in the evening, the café was bustling, with about 80% of the seats occupied. Shouting, cursing, keyboard smashing, and hysterical laughter filled the air—the only commonality being that everyone was wearing headphones, immersed in their own screens. The five newcomers pulling out their IDs at the front desk either went completely unnoticed or were glanced at and immediately ignored.
They wanted a private room, but all were full, forcing them to scatter across the main area and find seats wherever they could.
Fang Zheng logged into YY first, minimized it, and then started up the game. Before the game even loaded, however, his YY friends, alerted by his online status, bombarded him with enthusiastic greetings—
Crossplayer: “Thank heavens you’re here!”
438: “Commander, you’re five minutes late!”
Your Sister: “We’ve been waiting so long the flowers are wilting.”
Blood Bull: “Are Birdy, Diamond, Fifth Brother, and Mad Lad logging in too? Did you plan this?”
2B: “Fuck, scared me to death! I thought your place lost power again or the fiber got dug up!”
The Ghost Server Commander wasn’t exactly a punctual soul. Being three to five minutes late was a rare occurrence in his leadership career—five to fifteen was the norm. But never before had his tardiness been met with such tearful, eager anticipation.
Thus, the Commander grew nervous: “Did… you guys cause trouble again?”
His teammates, aggrieved yet united: “How could we cause trouble without you here?!”
Alright then. =_=
Fang Zheng: “Then why the hell are you all so worked up? You scared me into thinking something happened. Let’s go—gather at the Central Plains Main City.”
Blood Bull: “No need.”
Fang Zheng: “Huh?”
Blood Bull: “The quest is in the southern outskirts of the Central Plains. Coords 134,867.”
Fang Zheng: “What?!”
Blood Bull: “Five Peaks Pavilion found it.”
Fang Zheng: “WHAT?!”
438: “Commander, don’t freak out over nothing.”
Fang Zheng: “……”
Over the next two minutes, the teammates who had logged in earlier briefed Fang Zheng on the situation. There wasn’t much to say about the discovery itself—Five Peaks Pavilion had numbers, and with several small teams scouring the map day and night, it was only a matter of time before they found something. The unusual part was that they were willing to share the discovery with the Ghost Server, all because of the quest’s peculiar nature.
The so-called quest involved helping an NPC find her four missing sisters, kind of similar to the plot of the movie The Descent. The four girls had ventured into an underground cave system through an abandoned coal mine and disappeared, and players were tasked with retrieving them. When Five Peaks Pavilion first stumbled upon the quest, they weren’t sure if it was the key level-70 mission or just a side quest. That changed when their six-man squad followed the NPC’s directions to the coal mine and clicked on the mine’s crane to go down, only to be met with the prompt: Sorry, your party size is insufficient.
Of course, that alone could’ve meant it was just a cooperative instance for non-key quests. But when Drink Till You Drop arrived with a larger force, adding members to the team one by one and clicking the crane each time—only to keep getting the same message—his suspicions grew. Finally, when the team hit thirty members, the system message changed to Sorry, your party’s guild count is insufficient. That settled it—this absurdly demanding quest had to be the key mission!
What did “guild count insufficient” mean? Simply put: even if your party size was sufficient, if everyone was from the same guild, tough luck.
Later, Drink had twenty of his guild’s top players leave and form two new ten-man sub-guilds. When the three guilds teamed up with thirty members, the system rejected them again, stating that the guilds had to be at least three months old, and members had to have been in their guilds for over seven days.
At this point, the designer’s intent was clear: regardless of whether you were friends or foes, or how well you got along, you had to team up with three legitimate guilds. Whether optimists saw this as promoting “unity and cooperation” or pessimists insisted it was just “forcing collective infighting” was up for debate. But solo players and power-levelers were unequivocally screwed. The former would either have to change their ways, form their own guilds, and dive headfirst into group activities, or seek out existing guilds to temporarily—or permanently—join. Lone wolves simply wouldn’t cut it anymore. As for the latter, they’d have to adopt a more strategic, large-scale approach to their business. Being a power-leveler now required more than just time and manpower—you needed guilds, teams, fighters, and a whole suite of supporting infrastructure.
Blood Bull: “So, do we team up? We’re waiting for your decision.”
“A thirty-man party…” Fang Zheng tried to picture the scene and shuddered. Damn, would there even be any mobs visible in that chaos?!
“It requires three guilds, right?” Birdy, who had been listening quietly, suddenly spoke up. “Besides us and Five Peaks Pavilion, who else are they recruiting?”
“It’s gotta be War Banner or Huaxia Dominion. The former’s got skill, the latter’s got numbers—they can scrape together ten decent players.”
Birdy: “Not considering Meteor Blitz?”
“Unless I’ve got a death wish.”
Fang Zheng: “Honestly, ever since Big H became their leader, their guild’s style has gotten weirder and weirder…”
Wait—who was he and Birdy even talking to? =_=
Drink: “Hi~”
Hi your sister!!!
Drink: “Hello everyone, I’m Drink Till You Drop.”
Fang Zheng: “Didn’t your teacher teach you that introductions go at the beginning?!”
Drink: “You were all so engrossed in your discussion…”
Fang Zheng: “Your Sister—”
Your Sister: “Commander, I swear I didn’t give him our YY room number!”
Liar! Zhang Wuji’s mom said all pretty women lie2From Jin Yong’s wuxia novel “The Heaven Sword and Dragon Saber.” Zhang Wuji’s mother’s dying words to her young son were a warning that the more beautiful a woman is, the more likely she is to lie.!!! TAT
Drink: “She really didn’t. I’m temporarily using her laptop, and YY auto-logged in.”
Blood Bull: “Then what’s Your Sister using?”
Drink: “My desktop.”
Blood Bull: “Where are you guys?”
Drink: “At home.”
Entire Ghost Server: “Ohhh…”
Two minutes later—
Drink: “Done with the mental imagery?”
Fang Zheng, on behalf of all comrades: “Pretty much.”
Drink: “So, team up or not?”
“Why even ask? If we don’t team up, how do we raid? If we don’t raid, how do we hit max level?” At the end of the day, the level-70 quest was a mandatory hurdle in Huaxia’s progression. A thirty-man raid was something the Ghost Server couldn’t even halfway muster on their own. With Five Peaks Pavilion leading the charge, it was a win-win. “But we’d prefer War Banner.”
Drink paused for a few seconds: “Sure? Their reputation isn’t great—they’ve backstabbed other guilds in joint raids before.”
Fang Zheng also paused: “I don’t think they’d dare pull that on the Ghost Server again.”
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